The Strangers we know
by 21fairylights
Summary: She raced up to the Hokage tower, Tusande was sitting there with a grim expression, and then there was one, two and ... only two of them Naruto and Kakashi, where the hell was sasuke? Her heart in her throat, and one question what the hell was going on?


_**Hello! right this is my 3rd story its a kakashi and Sakura fiction but it will have sasuke and sakura elements in it as part of the story, it is crucial to the story line :) This is the first chapter :) please enjoy **_

_**Diclaimer: I do not own Naruto, i am simply a fan. **_

With him it was so easy the fire and the passion came with the snap of our fingers. I could tell exactly what he was thinking just by the look on his face and the unsaid sentences in those beautiful coal eyes that always seemed to go on for ever and ever. We had been best friends for years ever since childhood and he knew me better than anyone and vice versa. There had always been the fire there, the unmistakable chemistry and tense atmospheric aura that surrounded us but it wasn't until we became older that we really understood what it was. And when we did, it was like fireworks exploding across my vision as my nerve endings were set alight and my finger tips and toes tingled with the anticipation.

It was wonderful all of it was so wonderful, how could it not be? In love with your best friend and for them to feel the same way, it was …. Wonderful.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Her eyes began that awful process of opening up to the disturbance that was waking her up. She hated it she didn't want to wake up! She had just done a night shift and now all this light had flooded her vision and alerted her mind that it was time to stop resting, to become active once more. She was going to kill whoever had the nerve to knock on her door at this time!

BANG BANG

"OI! Sakura! Open up!" The voice sounded familiar to her and her mind was working furiously to figure out who it was so she could add them onto her most wanted list. There was however a slight edge to this voice that didn't go unnoticed to her trained ears and somewhere deep inside her apprehension started to slowly crawl its way into her swirl of emotions. Cursing under her breath she got up running her hands through her pretty pink hair that really did need a wash. Walking down stairs she opened the door to look upon the face of her friend Kiba. Her analytical side of her mind was suddenly worried, Kiba knew she was on a night shift because he was there! He had just come back from a mission and he was pretty bloodied up, she had healed him with that being said he knew it was suicide to wake her up, something must be wrong. However the other side was still pissed that he had woken her up even though he knew she had just done a night shift.

"What?" She growled out her eyes squinting in the light still.

"Get dressed Hokage wants you ASAP," Okay alarm bells had started to go off in her head.

"Why?" this time she did not growl her voice was coloured with concern.

"They're back," He said and suddenly she wasn't angry anymore, she was a lot of things at this moment in time but angry was not one of them. Part of her was hugely relieved she knew exactly what Kiba meant when he said 'they'. Naruto, Sasuke and Kakashi were back, her boys. A very small part of her brain however was running on overdrive asking all these questions she didn't want to know the answer to. Why hadn't he just said their names instead of 'they'? Why on earth did the Hokage want to see her she wasn't on this mission? (Sasuke had again decided against it) and what on earth had gone wrong?

She nodded at Kiba and ran back to her room throwing on whatever came to her hands first. Once ready she set off for the tower. Normally on a day like this she would walk idly through the market and say hello to everyone and pick up some lunch if she was on shift at the hospital or had a busy day of training. However right now the streets were blurred as she raced through jumping from rooftop to rooftop.

Once there she ran up the stairs and opened the door to her Masters office. Looking around she saw Tsunade giving her a grim expression, that made her heart leap up into her throat. She looked around there was one and two and … hang on two, where the hell was the other one? Her one? Where the hell was Sasuke? Naruto noticed the wild panic that had taken over her features.

"We ran into Itachi," He said his voice was so hard and strained it matched his eyes. She had never seen him look so sombre and hard cast. Her heart was running at a million miles an hour her mind was set into overdrive desperately putting the pieces together.

_Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God _… she thought over and over. If he wasn't back and Itachi? Was he dead? Had they finally managed to kill each other? she felt her body go numb with horror.

"what?" Her voice just managed to push past her lips into an almost inaudible whisper.

"On the mission, we were fighting some of the Akatsuki and then he showed up and that was it, Sasuke he went mental Sakura they almost killed each other," He said.

'Almost' that word flashed in her mind like a small seed of hope, he wasn't dead then.

"He's not dead?" She asked, just to confirm but her body had gone ridged and tense waiting for the answer.

"No he's not dead," Naruto replied and she slumped down against the wall and her body shook with relief as tears threatened to spill over her eyes. It wasn't until then that she noticed she had breathed a single breath ever since she walked through that door. The welcome air felt like it was filling her up with life again. But there was still one more question that still filled her with dread and threatened to take this blissful state she was in away.

"Where is he?" She dared to ask. She knew though, deep down. She just needed it to be confirmed. The though thought terrified her, if it was confirmed it was real.

"You know where he's gone, after he couldn't finish the job he went crazy he said that he had lost his purpose in life and that he needed revenge, he's gone to him Sakura," This time Narutos voice was so angry, anger spilled out from his words and it wrapped around us like a vice.

"I couldn't fucking stop him! I couldn't do it! I made one mistake and he took it!" Anger was consuming him and now the room. _No, no _she thought her heart went out to him of course he would blame himself. Like she always did she pushed her own distraught and sorrowing feelings aside for her friend, he needed her. She walked up to him and encased him in her embrace, her arms around his neck as she stoop on the tips of her toes.

"It's not your fault, we knew he might do this, it was always a risk but we put our faith in him that he would chose us, it's not your fault that he didn't," She whispered into his ear. She felt his arms wrap around her as his body raked with silent sobs, some of frustration some of sadness. Kakashi looked on feeling completely helpless. But as he looked on he couldn't help but feel admiration for her, she always, always put others first never her own feelings. Out of everyone he knew this trait of hers the most, she had done it for him many times, it was both a virtue and flaw however he felt because sometimes people could a abuse this. Sasuke certainly did when he didn't want her to go on dangerous missions she would always at the end comply with what he wanted as she took in his feelings, instead of fighting for her own.

But for him, that trait of hers was what made him fall in love with her long ago.

"So where do we go on from here?" Tsunade asked them all. Sakura looked at her. Nothing could bring Sasuke back, not even her or Naruto. He had chosen. The promise of him becoming stronger if he stayed on Kohona that both she and Naruto made to him had been broken, at least in his eyes.

"Nothing, we can't do anything, he chose to go," She said her voice broke slightly.

"Orchimaru is a high risk to this village and now Sasuke has joined him, I must treat Sasuke as a traitor to this village, Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi," She gave them all a grave look.

"You know I cannot protect him anymore, if any of our ninjas see him he must be killed on site,"

"What! NO! what if he comes back!" Naruto shouted out angrily his voice desperate at the thought of his friend, someone who was as close to him as a brother being killed. Sakura stood there silently and was very still the thought of him being killed maybe by someone who knew him, who knew her was unbearable it tore at her and she felt her body go numb again.

"Naruto he chose to go on his own freewill! He is now a danger to this village, unless he comes back on his own record or you somehow drag his sorry ass back here then he is a high risk to this village and therefore is now Kohonas most wanted, he will probably be on our allies lists now to." She concluded and the reality, the gravity of the situation sunk into the two young ninja.

Kakashi wished it wasn't like this, he had lost both team mates and his sensei. At the time he honestly thought he would never came back from it, it had taken years of heart ach, painful memories but these kids who stood before him, experiencing something similar had pulled him out of it.

"She is right Naruto, there is nothing we can do or we can do is hope, and try and find him and knock some sense in him when we do," Sakura concluded.

He just stood there, knowing he couldn't win. In the end he settled for a nod and a fierce promise that he would bring him back. And with that they were all dismissed with a week without missions and hospital work, for a rest Tsunade said.

For hours they sat on her sofa curled up with one another giving each other comfort, the knowledge that they were both feeling the same thing. Her head was on his lap his body leaning on hers, his head on her hips and his hands in her hair as she cried, her words lost. He cried silently.

Occasionally one of them got up to make coffee or hot chocolate or tea. There was no food in her house, normally she ordered in or brought for that day. As if by magic Kakashi turned up with ramen and sweets and they sat with each other wordlessly eating.

"It will be okay," She said. It was the first word spoken in hours.

"Yeah, I know it was always in the backs of our minds if ever something like this did happen would he stay again…" Naruto began and trailed off. The question in our heads had defiantly been answered with our worst fears.

"But God I thought he would stay, I really did believe that, he made bonds, hell Sakura you and him I just…" Again words failed him. Yes she and him had been together for about 2 years officially though their passionate nights had started way long before then.

"I don't know, I know he loves us, but some memories are too painful, and I know it tore him up to know that Itachi was out there somewhere and that he could do nothing about it," She said. Kakashi noticed it again, placing his own feelings above hers when he had done nothing to deserve it. In fact Sasuke had put them all in danger, even the girl he supposedly loved more than anything else.

"He shouldn't of left," Kakashi voiced in his voice stone cold.

"But…"

"No Sakura he shouldn't have, he knows about Orchimaru and what he does and what he has done to this village, hell he was even part of the group that wants to kill Naruto!" Kakashi was angry, really, really angry.

"Don't give him your pity you two! He doesn't deserve it! All this grief and pain for a guy who chose a serial killer psychopath over the two people he loved the most, he's put you in danger and the village that has treated him with nothing but respect and kindness because of his own stupid personal agenda, he deserves nothing!" Kakashi shouted and the both of them just sat there and watched as he stormed out of her house and listened to the door slam shut.

"Whoa, I've never seen him that angry," Naruto whispered quietly.

"Is he right?"

The question hung in the air. It was difficult he was right and yet they couldn't bring themselves to hate the man who had left them, they knew him, knew his pain and how deep that hatred for his brother ran, it was a part of him. However it never been the defining characteristic of him, not like now.

"I guess he is, I just can't hate him but I wont under any circumstances let him hurt you or anyone else in this village," Naruto said. She could her his resolve in his voice, unbreakable.

"Agreed," They turned to each other with a genuine smile. The first they had in days.

"Mean it?" He asked

"Its me and you Naruto, forever whatever you decide I'll always be by your side," and with that they both smiled and let sleep take over them.

**_So i tried not to make it really depressing, its not always going to be this sad promise! Okay, tell me what you think. be honest i can take it :) I'm always greatful for any comments and reviews _**

**_thanks for reading! _**

**_xxxx _**


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